The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1887-11-23
What the Law Could Not Do.

You step into school-room which is tur-
bulent, dark, noisome, disorderly, unnvit-
ing. Insolence is in the air, idleness in every
seat, and rebellion the spirit of the place.
You have to seek the teacher before you find
him, and are not pleased at what you see.
Rules and regulations cover the walls; thou
shalt and thou shalt not are the controlling
powers Of the room; the pupils brains are d.
velted from their books, devising means for
eluding the wording of the law. Slyness, de-
ceit, revolt, stand face to face with a
scowl, q detective and rod; the forces,
teacher and pupil, meet as enemies; the school
room is battle ground.
Next door you enter and find a hive.
Heads al! bowed, forms erect rows in order.
Noise is dead, disorder absent, turbulence
asleep. There is gentle murmur OF reclta-
tion, friend helping friend. Not rule on the
wall, not an order on the board. Law is
dead letter in a condition controlled by an
invisible power-the spirit Of the Master ls
there!
Twenty years ago Five Points, New York,
was notorious the world over as being the
most wicked and uncomfortable of hui
manity's haunts. it was the home of the
murderer, the den Of thieves, the lair Of all
that was wild, savage and untamed. Pow
erty, suffering, vice and crime held riot IN
this whirlpool Of Satan. People dared not
walk through its midst by dark or daylight.
1t was truly "a God-forsaken region
Today walked through Five Points and
did not know it!
To reach the Third avenue Elevated Road
from Broadway, l unwittingly passed right
through the midst of Helrs anto.room un-
ccathedi .,
To he sure it seemed rs if heaven and earth
came together there in the sharp vortex Of
streets which looks rs though SO many sew
ers had lost their way, and in rushing to lind
it knocked foreheGds in the disorderly, un-
shaped court which makes tie kernal proper
of Five Poiuts.-a court in which neither
straight line, square nor angle appears for
about two and half blocks each way.
True, half-clad children, white, black, yel.
low, green, and dirt colored, swarmed and
wallowed True, more than one poor wretch
dragged his slow length along in the feeDle,
dccaved, death-in-life conditions which
marks the inhabitants Of more places than
the five Points: but not one single policeman
did meet on the way. Express and div
cry wagons ratified over the stones, the street
cars with their respectable conductors and
drivors logged calmly on their way as peace-
ruIIy as on broadway. One of the slantin,g
with all its links of civilization, just as IN the
uppest of uptown districts.
But there, in the attitude Of giant police
man, steady, strong, firm, but not aggressive,
stood guard unwinkingly over the interests
of this metropolitan maelstrom. the gigantic
white building of the Five Points Mission
church, its brand Of Office drawn clear and
effaceable across its white forehead, and its
various little adjuncts and annexes of schools,
free missions, hospitals, and chapels, like so
many gentle handmaids stand around to aid
in the work of humanizing this devils quar-
ter.
IN establishment, not unmi1ed with a
strange dread, asked the gate-keeper of the
road, "Do you mean to tell me, Sir, that this
place through which have just passed is the
notorious Five Points Of New YorkF'
"Indade, thin, the very same place it is,
but not the Five Points Of twenty year ago
or more, whin wur young man. The like
O. you would niver q cum out to ak me the
QUESTION, nor the cop that'd thry to lade ye
out nathur. Yis, Five Points is dacent
enough place today"
"Well, what in the world has caused such
a remarkable change? How do you account
for its being like this, even as bad as it Isl"
;!Ah, thin schools and thin churches!
There's nawthin kin stand EN-. They dhruv
out and coaxed out, and when they couldn't
git em out no otilGc way they just brought
out all the divi!thry-whch that same niver
had the face to come back and'-
This then the key. This the cause of so
marvellous a change, the scource Of SO much
hidden power! This that had led out not only
lawlessness hut the law. This the reason that
/ could today walk unprotected through Flvt
Points, the quarter century ago Wlckedest
place on earth and not know it'll
The same law was here then as now, the
same policeman, the same Jail. Thou shalt
and thou shalt not swung from the billy"
wet with the blood of the wretched victims,
and laws orders tapped in the sodden air
over the improvised scatfod of the lamp post,
Law stood face to face with law lessness in one
riotous combat, but was not able to conquer
it. Never was so forcibly struck with re-
spect for the subtle, silent, restraining
spirits, the church and the school, which,
stronger than law, have walked with us to-
gether side tx side ever since the countrys
birth, as was today when walked through
Five Points. New York, and did not know
It. for-ssthe spirit Of the Master was there"